Question becomes: Is defense this good?Texans attempt to bottle showing against Seahawks

Published 6:30 am, Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Texans’ seven sacks in the last two games accounts for nearly a third of the season’s total.

The Texans’ seven sacks in the last two games accounts for nearly a third of the season’s total.

Photo: Nick De La Torre, Chronicle

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The defense so thoroughly dominated the Seahawks it jumped from 16th to 13th in the overall rankings, based on yards allowed, in a single afternoon.

The defense so thoroughly dominated the Seahawks it jumped from 16th to 13th in the overall rankings, based on yards allowed, in a single afternoon.

Photo: Nick De La Torre, Chronicle

Texans look to duplicate previous defensive effort

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A common theme among the defensive players in the Texans’ locker room Sunday after they had put a serious whipping on the Seattle Seahawks by relentlessly swarming quarterback Matt Hasselbeck was better late than never.

But didn’t it also seem to be too little too late? The damage to the team’s playoff hopes probably had already been done. The Texans knew it and everybody else knew it, too. As strong safety Bernard Pollard conceded, “We can’t turn back the hands of time.” Still, Pollard added optimistically, “I think everything is settled now.”

With the woeful 1-12 St. Louis Rams — last in the NFL in scoring — on tap this weekend followed by Miami’s middling offense the next, the Texans’ defense should keep feeling good about itself heading into the season’s final exam, to be proctored by New England’s Tom Brady. If everything is indeed “settled” and the Texans take care of business in St. Louis and Miami, the game against the Patriots in Reliant Stadium on Jan. 3 will at least give them a shot at the franchise’s first winning season.

“The guys were just more locked in,” middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans said of the 34-7 Seattle slaying, during which the Texans stopped the Seahawks for losses on almost every fourth play they ran while allowing only two third- or fourth-down conversions in 19 attempts. “We were really focused on our jobs and what we had to do.”

Added Antonio Smith: “I promise you when everyone’s leading and playing hard, we can go out there and dominate teams like that.”

Of course, had the Texans done a better job in recent narrow losses to Indianapolis and Jacksonville, when a fourth-quarter stop or two might have turned defeats into victories, the stakes going forward would be far higher.

The Texans have been in every game since a season-opening manhandling by the New York Jets but failed to close the deal in six of them, with the blame ultimately falling equally on the offense and the defense. Nonetheless, because defensive muscle tends to define a team — and because the Texans start four No. 1 draft picks and a pair of No. 2s there — more attention gets focused on failings there.

Putting the pressure on

The defense so thoroughly dominated the Seahawks it jumped from 16th to 13th in the overall rankings, based on yards allowed. The Texans’ seven sacks in the last two games accounts for nearly one-third of the season’s still-anemic total. Mario Williams has produced three of those, good for almost half of his eight on the year.

“I’ve just got to play harder, find an extra gear and just keep trying to push it,” Williams said. “It’s about all of us being accountable. You can say what you want about the coach, but at the end of the day it’s us. I guess you could say it’s an awakening. It’s crazy that it’s the end of the season. We should have had it happen before we got on this (four-game) losing streak. It’s us. We’ve definitely got to play better, man.”

Coach Gary Kubiak, whose sit-down with Williams last week will become a major part of Texans lore should they finish the season on a high note, said defensive coordinator Frank Bush’s aggressive game plan gave the players more opportunities to make plays.

“Frank called a lot more pressures than maybe we’ve been calling,” Kubiak said. “(The Seahawks) had some problems up front, (and) we were able to get to (Hasselbeck). We were able to get good penetration. Frank brought DeMeco a lot. He brought (Brian) Cushing a bunch. We were working in their backfield a great deal.

“But we were also able to get there with just four (rushers), too, so I think we played better as a group. And obviously Mario led that charge. That was Mario’s best game in a while and, when he’s doing those types of things, when he’s dominating one-on-one, we all get better.”

Continuity a factor

Kubiak also credits continuity — free safety Eugene Wilson has been the only major injury casualty — with Sunday’s awakening. For example, the superb rookie Cushing and Ryans are so comfortable with each other now that they’re starting to finish each other’s sentences.

“We’re playing fast and with a lot of confidence on defense,” Kubiak said. “We’ve been very fortunate health-wise. Those guys have played together all year long. They’ve got a lot of reps under their belts.

“They feel pretty good about what they’re doing right now, and it shows.”